Five Days in Summer
by Thimble
Summary: Himawari has a problem and Yuuko's all about helping in times of need, for a reasonable recompense of course.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Five Days in Summer

Fandom: xxxHolic;

Genre: Hurt/Comfort;

Characters/Pairings: Himawari, Yuuko;

Rating: PG

Warnings: Spoilers for Book Ten. Girl-talk, partial nudity, scabs.

Summary: Himawari has a problem and Yuuko's all about helping people in their time of need, for a reasonable recompense. Gen. No, really: gen. Oh alright... _mostly_ gen.

DISCLAIMER: The setting and all named characters belong to CLAMP, and I use them without permission.

_**Fire**_

Yuuko eyed the form before her with the eye of a critic, which is to say, appreciating all its qualities. A white torso rose out of a welter of fabric, as bountiful and elegant as Grecian sculpture – full hips and a nipped waist, the spread of shoulders promising a fullness in front to balance it all. It was as bountiful and elegant as Grecian sculpture and as damaged: scars ripped all over the back, wound over slender neck and arms, curved around ribs as if an unseemly archaeologist had attacked it with a chisel and then hooked his fingers in ochre and daubed the gashes red like fire.

The owner of the torso shifted, became human again. The weight of red-black hair coiled precariously on her head with black lacquer sticks began to topple, and she reached up quickly with one hand to steady it. As she moved, one of the scabs broke open and began to bleed in a slow trickle over inflamed skin.

"The scar tissue is hardening," said Yuuko. "When you move suddenly it can't flex with the rest of you, so it breaks again."

The girl, Himawari, twitched, half-turning to look at the witch.

"Truly," said Yuuko. "Watanuki is fine; Doumeki is with him. They are on a journey. The blood is not a sign of their distress, only, a need for medical attention." Around them, summer seethed in the witch's garden: cicadas droned, bees drifted over veridian grass, a small yellow bird darted through the swaying branches of a cherry tree. Himawari nodded, a quick tip of the head and began to gather up her clothing.

"Antiseptic would be wise," the witch observed. "Also softening cream to keep the scars from breaking open again."

Himawari smiled sunnily. "Thank you very much, Yuuko-san!" She shrugged a blouse embroidered with small blue flowers up around her shoulders.

"Can you reach to do it yourself?"

Himawari beamed. "I'll be fine!"

"Ah, but a close friend or family member would be ideal to help you with this..."

Himawari said nothing as she buttoned a high collar. Yuuko refrained from commenting. Sometimes it seemed that the witch could pull a whole crashing thunderstorm around her shoulders and still be quieter than when she was Refraining From Commenting. Himawari's fingers paused on the top button. "... Would you?"

"If you wish."

"How much?"

"What you can easily afford."

Himawari blew air through her nose once, and nodded. Yuuko clapped her hands and one of her minions, the pink-haired one, brought a tray with a steaming bowl of water, clean white cloth, and a jar of something that smelled like parsley.

Himawari was glad that they were doing this outside, on the witch's veranda. The summer heat had been oppressive even passing through the house to the back garden. And simply, for a moment, Himawari had been in the depths of Yuuko's house, in a dark room stinking of incense and blood, sick to her stomach as the Time-Space Witch put a bowl of bloody water on the table.

She couldn't help from flinching, when Yuuko touched her. Once, the witch had grabbed a fistful of something pink and squirming from a black bowl, had slapped it, still writhing, onto Himawari's back and gone back for more, working methodically in a room of blood and incense and the sound of too many people breathing. Once, Himawari had bought another person's scars from Yuuko-san, and it had hurt.

But soon enough it was only about having wounds cleaned, a warm damp cloth soaking away the blood and scabs. Yuuko was never gentle but she was careful, and did not cause unnecessary pain. She worked methodically. The water dried quickly and the green ointment was cool on Himawari's back. Damp air sighed across her skin.

Afterwards, Yuuko's long robes slithered as she rose and shifted to sit beside Himawari, where they could look each other in the eye if they wanted. "So. Regarding the bill. Bring me... home cooking. Maru and Moro try hard, but they're just not up to the standards of my kitchen-slave."

Himawari beamed. "My mother is a wonderful cook!"

"No. Food made with your own hands." Himawari's beaming smile got a little soggy.

She was back at the store that evening, with a basket of warm muffins coloured green with parsley, wrapped in a snowy-white napkin. Yuuko plucked one from the basket and cut off a steaming slice with a silver knife. She tasted it with distant eyes. Then, "It is acceptable. Come back tomorrow."

Himawari walked five paces before breaking into a run. As it happens, a car that swerved to avoid her crossing the street ran into a lamp-post, with minimal damage to one light. Two days later, residual glass from the accident burst the tire of a cyclist racing to reach his daughter's first ballet recital. But these things happen every day.

No particular reason for the Fire, Water whatsits – they're just what the kanji in the relevant days read (starting with Tuesday). I used them as a secondary prompt when I was stuck with moving a scene, but that's all their relevance.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Water**_

It had rained a little earlier that day, and the heady smell of summer rain rising from hot concrete was still with them. Tanpopo the bird was playing in one of the shining puddles left over, dipping his head into the water and shaking it with tiny determined squeaks. Himawari's flowery skirt was a little soggy from an unnoticed water-patch on the edge of the veranda. She wiggled her toes in the damp grass.

Yuuko trailed cool fingers down the back of Himawari's neck. "A woman's charm point."

Himawari said nothing. She didn't need reminding that she (_damaged goods)_ was going to have to be more careful now: no wearing kimono with the collar draped gracefully loose at the back (_damaged goods)_, no swimsuits, no trips to the public baths (_damaged goods)_, not unless she wanted everyone to _know_ that she (_damaged goods) _wasn't normal.

"Sometimes we pay and pay again, not so?" said Yuuko, wiping the last of the salve from her fingers.

"Yes!" said Himawari, beaming. "Today I brought salad!"

Tanpopo squeaked and flew to sit on her shoulder. He shook his wings and tail and spattered tiny drops of water all over her neck and face and she laughed, and fed him a sunflower seed.

It was a beautiful salad, with five kinds of freshly gathered greens and bright nasturtium petals scattered on top for colour and a refreshing peppery flavour. Three streets away, an elderly gentleman lamented the absence of nasturtiums at the only flower shop in the neighbourhood: nasturtiums, his dying wife's favourite flower. Ah, but life is hard.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Wood**_

Tanpopo had learned about catching bugs, the tiny hovering kind. He nipped and zig-zagged through the branches of Yuuko's cherry tree as if it were his own private obstacle course. Every time he caught one he soared across the lawn to perch on Himawari's finger and cheep excitedly. She lifted him higher into the sunlight and smiled.

"You have more flexibility now," said Yuuko, smoothing in the cream.

"Do I?" Himawari said, turning, until an irritated tap on the side of her head sent her facing forward again. She directed her eyes and voice instead to the ends of the extravagant furisode sleeves draped beside her, pale green and patterned with sprays of leaves. "It itches."

"That is, arguably, a good sign."

"I brought castella sponge cake today."

"Hmm."

"This is the second try. The first was a little scorched and ugly-looking."

"Standards of beauty differ. Clasp your hands and pull them forward, as far as they can go – ah yes, it _is_ better."

Himawari's hair started slipping from the black lacquer pins. Yuuko caught it, but then pulled the pins and let the hair fall in inky clouds down Himawari's back. "Very pretty."

"Thank you."

"It makes a good veil."

Himawari shrugged. Yuuko caught up the hair with long-fingered hands and rewound it deftly, poking in the sticks at odd angles. She had a knack for pinning hair that made one look as if just risen from some languorous and probably immoral activity. Himawari wasn't sure she liked it: she generally preferred the fresh-faced 'innocent angel' look.

An inky lock of Yuuko's hair was lying on the silken sleeve. Himawari picked it up lightly with two fingers and a thumb. There was a question that she did not ask.

"If I told you..." said Yuuko.

"Yes?"

"It wouldn't be a veil anymore."

And Himawari wondered what even this much of a confidence was costing her. Even so, she walked home a little straighter, a little taller, and kept her hair up in the pins almost all the way. Three different gentlemen of varying ages and dispositions turned to watch her as she passed. One fell off his bicycle, another sprained his ankle on a city-bred tanuki (who went home vowing terrible revenge by his shaking scrotum), and the third had a difficult discussion with his boyfriend not long after. It was all a terrible shame.

_extravagant furisode sleeves_ A furisode is a kind of kimono generally worn by young women, brilliantly decorated and with exceedingly long sleeves. Back in the Hei-an Era, high-class women would hide behind screens but drape their carefully designed sleeves where they could be seen. _I'm_ not the one to tell Yuuko she's wearing a style to young for her or using thousand-year-old etiquette...

_city-bred tanuki_ Also called a raccoon dog. They're reputed to have magical powers, often related to their very large and transformable scrotums. That guy is in for a world of unpleasantness, and soon. Why am I writing this?


	4. Chapter 4

_**Metal**_

In retrospect the thing with the blood should have been classier, something with a chipped stone knife perhaps, or an ancient ceremonial dagger. Instead, Yuuko had opened some veins on Doumeki's forearm with a stainless steel kitchen knife and set him dripping over a plastic bucket. It was a red bucket.

It had taken a long time: the boy had sat on a stool and leant over, still in his blood-spattered archery rig, and supported himself with an elbow on his thigh. They were alone for most of it – ever since Mokona bounced into the room wailing "Watanuki stopped breathing again!" and Yuuko left in a graceless hurry. She'd brought Doumeki water, rattling around in an unfamiliar kitchen, and he'd thanked her politely for each cup.

They talked in broken, leaping conversations about schoolwork and movies, avoiding such topics as What If It Isn't Enough, and When He Is Better - Doumeki never quite got around to asking what Himawari had been doing when Watanuki fell through the window, for which she loved the boy more than a little.

By the time the blue-haired minion took the bucket away, Doumeki had looked as bleary as a man coming off a three-day bender. She thought he was out of it during the thing with the scars, but he'd somehow oozed to the wall of Watanuki's room, close enough to hear the boy's breathing, so apparently not.

And they'd waited.

Which was all apropos of nothing, really, but Himawari was waiting now, peeking out from an ornate screen while Yuuko talked with a client that Himawari couldn't see. "What are they saying?" she whispered to the minions. They grinned, pink hair and blue hair alike, and drew cartoons in crayon on the back of the screen.

There was Yuuko, reclining gloriously on the fainting couch, and before her knelt a very proper business woman, her hair scraped back in a bun and large, dark glasses covering half of her face. A caption read: _Take this cup from me._

In the following box, the woman had taken off the glasses to show flowers growing where her eyes should be. Delicate buds trickled down her cheeks. _Oh I shall die._

The next box was a close-up of Yuuko, eyes glinting. _No. You won't._

Finally there was a sketch of them both on the floor, half wound about each other. The woman's sleeve was unbuttoned and rolled up, and Yuuko cradled a forearm blossoming flowers with one hand. She held her other hand palm upwards in the air: _Maru. Moro._

When they'd finished writing the caption, the two minions looked at each other and scampered for the kitchen. "Run with scissors! Run with scissors!"

It was at this time that Himawari chose to wait in the garden with her jar of honey-crunch.

"No," said Yuuko, "that was my price. To choose between trusting that her circle would accept the change she had begun, or not." She drew a long pull on her silver pipe and blew out the smoke, examining the trail it made against the red and gold colours of the sunset sky.

"Either way the woman paid." She tapped ash from the pipe into a little pot and pointed it at Himawari. "Your turn."

Himawari had thought Doumeki was out of it, after the thing with the blood and the thing with the scars. But he'd opened one eye as she walked past him and said, "That's my brave girl." She'd asked him pleasantly not to pity her and he'd shaken his head slightly as the eye sagged shut. His head had sagged down like a rag doll's as she went through the door, so he was probably out of it when she explained to Watanuki how she was a Blight On His Life And Was Going Away Now and Watanuki insisted on Making Her Cake (because Watanuki was, when you came down to it, a bit of a silly). Probably out of it, because who else would spend that much time with her after, knowing?

Which was apropos of nothing, really, but this time Himawari stayed after the treatment. She drank warm sake with Yuuko and Mokona and the minions (who were called Marudashi and Morodashi – wasn't that cute?) and they lit sparklers to fizz away in the muggy evening air.

And somewhere in the city, a woman wore sunglasses after dark. Which was sad.

NOTES

Ai – _how_ many times did I rewrite this chapter? 'Twas difficult getting the themes to work together, and the identity of Yuuko's customer changed several times. The tanuki almost came back. Tanuki Wars. Yeah, that's gotta be written sometime.

_Take this cup from me_ is a quote from one of the gospels: The Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, having second thoughts about the crucifixion. Was trying to suggest that the flower thing was a price the woman had already paid for some unspecified benefit – not sure how well that worked out.

The flower thing is not particularly original. One of Caitlin R. Kiernan's _Sandman_ comics had a dream where Lucien the librarian had flowers for eyes. I riffed on it, is all.

_Marudashi and Morodashi_ apparently both mean 'to expose oneself in public'. Oh dear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Earth**

They're sitting out on the verandah in what might best be described as a _lounge_, watching the rain fall down in silver-grey sheets. Maru and Moro and Mokona splash through puddles in bright yellow rain-coats, and a little yellow bird cheers them on from his warm place under Himawari's hair.

Himawari asks, "So what use do you have for my food, anyway, Yuuko-san?"

And Yuuko looks surprised and says, "I eat it."

So they're lounging out on the verandah at the start of the rainy season, sharing a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies. One woman smokes, as her hair is braided by the other into long skinny schoolgirl plaits. They don't say much.

And the rain falls down, and flowers grow.

_Owari_

WHYS AND WHEREFORES

So there's Himawari: a pretty girl who values appearances, speaks obscurely, has a buried but vicious sense of humour ("You and Doumeki are so _cute_ together!" SPAZZ FLAIL RANT), and owns a knack for leading people into situations they otherwise wouldn't encounter, usually unhappy.

And then there's Yuuko: a beautiful woman who enjoys flamboyant appearances, speaks obscurely, has an openly vicious sense of humour ("You and Doumeki should hold the lantern closely, as if you were newly-weds." SPAZZ FLAIL RANT), and owns a knack for leading people into situations they otherwise wouldn't encounter, quite often unhappy.

That's... quite a lot in common.

The seeds of a friendship fic began to sprout. Add to that Himawari's canon reluctance for Watanuki to know what she paid for his health, added to the unhappiness scarring causes a lot of women which is just, you know, one more thing for Himawari to hide, added to Yuuko's substance abuse (and does she even _like_ her job, anyway?) added to _ukiyo-e_ prints of women lounging on garden verandahs... turned into this. Hope you enjoyed it.

I rewrote this chapter _so_ many times... The cutting room floor is quite extravagant, I must say. These notes are longer than the chapter. Sorry.


End file.
